Something Warcry had said finally clicked in my brain.
“A grav like me and a powerhouse like you?” I sneered at the ginger. “So, what, ‘grav’ means lazy or something?”
“Means a human who sticks to the old Confederation-approved levels of kishotenketsu even though they don’t have to anymore.” He spat over the side of the boat. “Although, if the Confederation knew Death cultivators could gank somebody without even passing Sho, they’d sure as bleed all start jettisoning ’em into space at birth.”
I glared at him. “Do you seriously think I’m sticking around Sho because I want to do what some space government says?”
Warcry shook his head. “I don’t know why you’re doing it, grav, but I know it’s an insult to your race and your Spirit. Having a play like that in your pocket means you oughta be on your way to something proper savage, not messing around the low levels. Put your mind to it, yeah?”
Sudden Death
WE BOATED FOR MOST of the night, alternating between me, Warcry, and Kest in the driver’s seat while the other two shined their HUD light out at the darkness and checked the map. Rali suggested that he give double-infusing the AlgaeFrize a shot, adding his All-Nighter Erasing ability to help keep us awake and alert, but Kest vetoed using the snacks for that. Instead, she passed out Coffee Dranks.
“You can double-infuse the AlgaeFrize, but we shouldn’t waste them on driving,” she said. “Not when Coffee Drank does the same thing. Given the way these guys fight like they’ll never die, we’re going to need all the AlgaeFrize we have left to keep them alive.”
I thought she was being a little overly cautious on that, because even when Warcry drove, we were still cutting through the swamp and over the bogs much faster than we could’ve walked. We even left behind the packs of fast-moving bog ferals we came across. I didn’t think we were going to get into any other fights unless those Heavenly Contrail dicks caught up to us before we made it to Heartchamber 2.
Which just goes to show how stupid I can be.
We’d been out of the trees on an endless stretch of open water for about an hour, and the pale blue rays of the first day sun were just beginning to reach up over the horizon when white light exploded like a supernova a hundred yards ahead of us.
I flinched and jumped to my feet.
“How ya goin’, grav?” Warcry sneered. “Swallow a bug?”
No one was looking at the light. It was like they hadn’t even noticed it.
“Crap. Guys, the angel of death is—”
This huge roar sent waves crashing along the water and knocked me back onto my butt in the boat. The engine cut out. Kest had been driving, so I figured she’d been thrown out of the driver’s seat. But when I looked, she was still up there, cranking away at the throttle, trying to get the fan moving again.
“What was that?” Rali asked, standing up and taking his walking stick in both hands like a bo staff.
I looked at him. “You heard that?”
“Kinda hard to miss,” Warcry muttered. He was on his feet now, too, searching for the source of the noise.
We didn’t have to look long. Another roar cut through the air, and a monster the size of a school bus came galloping out of that white light. It was scaly and green, with a head like a lion and the body of a horse. Its mane and tail were made of golden Spirit fire. All down its back and shoulders were these chitinous plates like a bug’s shell, and one huge branching antler was growing out of the middle of its forehead.
Flames erupted down Warcry’s head and shoulders. “The bollix is this now?”
So that answered my follow-up question about whether they could see this thing. Obviously it didn’t play by the same rules as the angel of death.
The boat rocked slightly as Rali shifted feet. “I can tell you what it looks like.”
“It is not a balancer,” Kest said.
“Maybe not, but that’s what it looks like,” Rali said. “Do we run? It shouldn’t be after us. We haven’t done anything to upset the Spiritual balance of the universe.”
“The engine’s stalled,” Kest said, using her stick arm to pull her chain gauntlet onto her real hand. “That thing’s sonic attack messed something up inside it. Running’s not going to be an option until I can overhaul it and fix whatever’s broken.”
The monster let out another roar that shook my rib cage.
“But we haven’t done anything to upset the Spiritual balance!” Rali yelled as the roar tapered off.
“Don’t seem like it cares, big man,” Warcry called back.
That white light flashed again, and the angel of death appeared, hovering behind the thing Rali kept calling a balancer. Flares of white Spirit fanned out from her shoulders like wings, and her long white hair flowed behind her. Perfect marble skin glowed against the backdrop of the night sun. She was beautiful and terrifying, kind of like a lightning strike five feet from your face.
None of my friends were looking at her, though, so we were back to normal on that score at least.
“Grady Hake,” she boomed, “you have caused me your last bit of trouble. You are finished here!”
The angel pulled her shining white scythe out of thin air. The weapon was ridiculously huge, with a blade twice as tall as she was. She didn’t fly at me with it like she had last time we’d met up. Instead, she stayed back and pointed the scythe at me.
“Him,” she said. “He’s the one.”
The balancer broke into a gallop, racing across the water toward our boat. Every thundering step left burning golden hoofprints on the surface of the water. The swamp started to boil around us. Sweat popped up all over me and immediately evaporated in the blast furnace of the balancer’s body heat. The skin on my
